Keeping The Babies In Parents Room

[gunnyd]

Hi y'all

Had the twins staying in the master bedroom since we brought them home. I have a bedroom available for them in my home. When did you put your little ones their own room? Did you always have them in their own room? Looking for opinions/personal experience here.

GunnyD

[Boo]

We had my son in with us (in a crib next to our bed) until he was 4 months. Thats is the age he became too big for the crib & needed to go into his own cot. He was also off the night feeds (was having a dream feed at around 11pm) so was sleeping from 7pm till about 6am.

I found as soon as he went into his own room we all got better sleep, mine was always disturbed by every move or sound baby made & babies was interuppted by hubby getting up at 5.30am every day to get ready for work.

Once in his own room he started sleeping till 7.30am every day & we had a baby monitor in case of crying but I didn't wake up at his every turn. To this day he goes down to sleep alone at 7.30pm & wakes between 7-7.30am most days. The only times we have disturbed nights are during illness or periods of teething but as he is now over 2 we very rarely have to go into him during the night now

Personally I think anything beyond 6 months is overkill (personal opinion here) & think that babies sleep much sounder & learn much better sleep habits when they are alone.

[sk1max]

Hi y'all

Had the twins staying in the master bedroom since we brought them home. I have a bedroom available for them in my home. When did you put your little ones their own room? Did you always have them in their own room? Looking for opinions/personal experience here.

GunnyD

Great question, but why do we need to separate the kids at all. Our daughter is 7 and still sleeps in our room. It seems to me to be very unatural to separate very young children from their parents. Kids seem so much happier & better adjusted if they are not forcibly and dramatically 'given their own room at 2. My opinion for what it's worth.

[onnut]

this is something I often wondered about as well, my boy is 15 months now and most nights he sleeps between mum and me in our bed. I and my wife both feel he is too young to go into his own room. he has his own cot next to our bed but most nights he wakes up at least once and ends up between us and we just forget to put him back

I dont think there is anything wrong in doing either way a long as you love your kids and take proper care of them.

[barky]

Put the child in it's own room as soon as possible . I think certainly after 1 or 2 months , unless of course the child has some medical problem or disorder.

[Livinginexile]

Hi y'all

Had the twins staying in the master bedroom since we brought them home. I have a bedroom available for them in my home. When did you put your little ones their own room? Did you always have them in their own room? Looking for opinions/personal experience here.

GunnyD

Great question, but why do we need to separate the kids at all. Our daughter is 7 and still sleeps in our room. It seems to me to be very unatural to separate very young children from their parents. Kids seem so much happier & better adjusted if they are not forcibly and dramatically 'given their own room at 2. My opinion for what it's worth.

At 1 year our son started sleeping in his own bed in our room, at 2 and a bit he was in his own room. He is now 3.

He loves his room and it gives my wife and I the privacy that we need.

Mind you, I had resistance from the wife at first as it seems it's the Thai way that the kids sleep in the parents bed untill quite late!

My wife now would'nt have it any other way

[WhiteShrek]

Start as you mean to go on. Either eat them, or put them in their own room after a few weeks.

Timing depends on ensuring you're comfortable the baby is healthy and strong enough, and you've both got to the stage where getting out of bed in the night isn't completely exhausting, just a bit tiring.

The Thai way of allowing the children to sleep in their parents beds is not my idea of a happy ending.

[singa-traz]

When? ASAP ... if the baby need something he will call you, don't worry!

I was called the 'Evil Farang', when I let the babies cried too long alone in their bed and it was time for them to sleep.

[Texpat]

Put them in their own room, if you have one, when you bring them home from the hospital.

If you're worried about them at night you can buy an audio monitor for a thousand baht or so.

[gunnyd]

Thanks for the replies. Boy they are just all over the place...

They are still taking night feedings and wake a few times during the night. They are 7 months but were born 14 weeks premature, so adjusted for that they are 4 months developmentally wise.

Any parents of preemies with suggestions?

[sk1max]

Put the child in it's own room as soon as possible . I think certainly after 1 or 2 months , unless of course the child has some medical problem or disorder.

Why?

[torrenova]

Put the child in it's own room as soon as possible . I think certainly after 1 or 2 months , unless of course the child has some medical problem or disorder.

Why?

So they know their place. I think it is better for the kids to be in their own room as soon as practical. Presumably you think they should sleep with the parents ? Why ?

[Benjie]

Put the child in it's own room as soon as possible . I think certainly after 1 or 2 months , unless of course the child has some medical problem or disorder.

Why?

So they know their place. I think it is better for the kids to be in their own room as soon as practical. Presumably you think they should sleep with the parents ? Why ?

They know their place? they aren't dogs.

We have our children in our room at the moment, the oldest (3 years) is about to move into her own room at her own request and is looking forward to helping decorate the room. Having the children in our room has really been quite nice for us, we are a really close family and have a lot of fun together.

I'm sure that shoving a child in their own room immediately might promote individuality, however its only in the last 60 years or so in the West that humans have done that, the kids who grew up in that generation have the highest divorce rates.

[Boo]

To the poster above, I am struggling to find a link between the choice of co-sleeping & divorce rates in the west. All the studies I have read equate the increase in divorce to mostly women gaining economic independence & having more rights resulting in them not be forced to stay married when they don't want to, not who slept where as a child. Is that an personal opinion or do you have any links?

But anyhoo.... a note to all posters, the op asked for peoples opinions but there is no need to turn the thread into a pissing match with anyone who doesn't agree with yours.

Thanks

[sibeymai]

Our 20 month old daughter is still sleeping in our bed for convenience because she is still breastfeeding.

I'd like to have our privacy back by moving her to her own room, but I think it can wait until she stops breastfeeding which I encourage my wife to do for as long as she can.

[gunnyd]

To the poster above, I am struggling to find a link between the choice of co-sleeping & divorce rates in the west. All the studies I have read equate the increase in divorce to mostly women gaining economic independence & having more rights resulting in them not be forced to stay married when they don't want to, not who slept where as a child. Is that an personal opinion or do you have any links?

But anyhoo.... a note to all posters, the op asked for peoples opinions but there is no need to turn the thread into a pissing match with anyone who doesn't agree with yours.

Thanks

It's always a pissing contest around here Boo

I am starting to think that when I can get them through 6 hours then I can move them down the hall with a monitor. FYI they are not sleeping in our bed, just in our bedroom. We have 2 cribs. Could do it Filipino style and hire a nanny, but that wouldn't be right IMHO.

Maybe I should have made it a poll question.

Keep opining and I will keep reading. Otherwise I wouldn't have started the thread.

[imaneggspurt]

Hi y'all

Had the twins staying in the master bedroom since we brought them home. I have a bedroom available for them in my home. When did you put your little ones their own room? Did you always have them in their own room? Looking for opinions/personal experience here.

GunnyD

Great question, but why do we need to separate the kids at all. Our daughter is 7 and still sleeps in our room. It seems to me to be very unatural to separate very young children from their parents. Kids seem so much happier & better adjusted if they are not forcibly and dramatically 'given their own room at 2. My opinion for what it's worth.

I can go one stage further, our 7 year old daughter has been in "our room " since birth, and now we have 2 beds in the room , me in one, mum and daughter in the other, wouldnt have it any other way, i love waking to to the sight of them both there, although i have to add we have been very lucky, she sleeps all night and always has,.

[imaneggspurt]

Put the child in it's own room as soon as possible . I think certainly after 1 or 2 months , unless of course the child has some medical problem or disorder.

Would you suggest a sound proof wall as well ! unbeleivable,.....

[bina]

gunny,

my kids all slept with us either in the bed or in a baby cot in same room until we caught them watching us thru the slats )... but our houses are so small that any slight noise from their room we hear right away; not like in large western style houses (or large expensive israeli houses i should add; kibbutz housing is small, cramped and the walls are paper thin, plus kids rooms are next to or across from parents' room)...

often i ended up sleeping on a quilt on the floor in childrens ' room- (they all slept in same room until oldest girl complained she didnt want middle son in same room-- they slept in bunk bed and trundle from under the bottom bunk bed in a very small room ) - since youngest was /is fairly asthmatic. actually (ex) hubby/father of the kids didnt like them in the bed since he is large and was afraid he would crush them so didnt sleep well; i liked it, didnt worry since i always 'felt' where they are in the bed.

all my kids are very 'own room/own bed' for sleeping from age 8 or so... even when ill and allowed to nap/sleep in my bed, they preferred to be moved back to own bed for night time sleep.

but gunny, since ur kids are preemies with all the probable problems that may accompany that i wonder if your wife feels comfortable to let them out of her hearing and sight at night, and if it wont create anxiety for her.

we once did a poll on the kibbutz about that; it was really funny since most of the families, even those that refused to let the kids sleep with them, what actually happened was that a parent would end up sleeping in a child's room, squeezed on a bed, on a chair, or on a quilt on the floor, and a child would be in the parents bed with the other parent. a sort of musical beds. i had my kids with me visiting in my american sister's house, the kids were in an other part of the house, and i felt very uneasy for no known logical reason other then i was used to hearing them all night long- breathing, coughing, snuffling, talking in their sleep, whatever.

by the time our kids go to the army, they are sleeping in the youth quarters of the kibbutz anyhow (age 17+), with no known psychological damage known to us from their sleeping with or w/o their parents. but, all our kids are able to sleep in cramped quarters or with others in their room or in army circumstances and im sure that their small rooms and sleeping with siblings in same room has a lot to do with that. westerners with single rooms seem to have a harder time adjusting to these sleeping arrangements.

bina

israel

[torrenova]

They know their place? they aren't dogs.

We have our children in our room at the moment, the oldest (3 years) is about to move into her own room at her own request and is looking forward to helping decorate the room. Having the children in our room has really been quite nice for us, we are a really close family and have a lot of fun together.

I'm sure that shoving a child in their own room immediately might promote individuality, however its only in the last 60 years or so in the West that humans have done that, the kids who grew up in that generation have the highest divorce rates.

The reason why kids of 60 years ago (and more recent actually) shared rooms was simply because houses were smaller, people were poorer and families were bigger. You don't need Einstein to work out that sharing was the only option given those circumstances. Those with large houses had their own rooms.

Our 20 month old daughter is still sleeping in our bed for convenience because she is still breastfeeding.

I'd like to have our privacy back by moving her to her own room, but I think it can wait until she stops breastfeeding which I encourage my wife to do for as long as she can.

I have never understood this argument. I have yet to see a child who can breastfeed whilst sleeping and as kids quickly go hours without waking, I don't see the need to have them in the room on the off chance they wake up and feel hungry.

I can go one stage further, our 7 year old daughter has been in "our room " since birth, and now we have 2 beds in the room , me in one, mum and daughter in the other, wouldnt have it any other way, i love waking to to the sight of them both there, although i have to add we have been very lucky, she sleeps all night and always has,.

And you think that is normal do you ? So your kid grows up thinking that the women of the house all sleep in one room together, sharing beds as well. Sorry but I don't consider that normal or healthy for a child of 7.

[torrenova]

Put the child in it's own room as soon as possible . I think certainly after 1 or 2 months , unless of course the child has some medical problem or disorder.

Would you suggest a sound proof wall as well ! unbeleivable,.....

I think choosing a child's room may need some thought on positioning and sound resonance to the rest of the house and the neighbours.

........ by the time our kids go to the army, they are sleeping in the youth quarters of the kibbutz anyhow (age 17+), with no known psychological damage known to us from their sleeping with or w/o their parents. but, all our kids are able to sleep in cramped quarters or with others in their room or in army circumstances and im sure that their small rooms and sleeping with siblings in same room has a lot to do with that. westerners with single rooms seem to have a harder time adjusting to these sleeping arrangements.

bina

israel

I don't think that potential future suitability for sleeping in army quarters is a reason to have kids sharing, especially with parents and elder relations. As an interviewing officer, I'm not sure how much positive enphasis I would put on a candidate's statement that he felt he could bunk up with others ok because he shared a room with his mama until he was 17

[sibeymai]

Our 20 month old daughter is still sleeping in our bed for convenience because she is still breastfeeding.

I'd like to have our privacy back by moving her to her own room, but I think it can wait until she stops breastfeeding which I encourage my wife to do for as long as she can.

I have never understood this argument. I have yet to see a child who can breastfeed whilst sleeping and as kids quickly go hours without waking, I don't see the need to have them in the room on the off chance they wake up and feel hungry.

Normally she will feed 2-3 times a night.

[imaneggspurt]

They know their place? they aren't dogs.

We have our children in our room at the moment, the oldest (3 years) is about to move into her own room at her own request and is looking forward to helping decorate the room. Having the children in our room has really been quite nice for us, we are a really close family and have a lot of fun together.

I'm sure that shoving a child in their own room immediately might promote individuality, however its only in the last 60 years or so in the West that humans have done that, the kids who grew up in that generation have the highest divorce rates.

The reason why kids of 60 years ago (and more recent actually) shared rooms was simply because houses were smaller, people were poorer and families were bigger. You don't need Einstein to work out that sharing was the only option given those circumstances. Those with large houses had their own rooms.

Our 20 month old daughter is still sleeping in our bed for convenience because she is still breastfeeding.

I'd like to have our privacy back by moving her to her own room, but I think it can wait until she stops breastfeeding which I encourage my wife to do for as long as she can.

I have never understood this argument. I have yet to see a child who can breastfeed whilst sleeping and as kids quickly go hours without waking, I don't see the need to have them in the room on the off chance they wake up and feel hungry.

I can go one stage further, our 7 year old daughter has been in "our room " since birth, and now we have 2 beds in the room , me in one, mum and daughter in the other, wouldnt have it any other way, i love waking to to the sight of them both there, although i have to add we have been very lucky, she sleeps all night and always has,.

And you think that is normal do you ? So your kid grows up thinking that the women of the house all sleep in one room together, sharing beds as well. Sorry but I don't consider that normal or healthy for a child of 7.

Well its better than being shut in a room and pissing off down the pub as some parents do ,so if it works for us im happy,,,which it does, no wonder the thais veiw us as selfish idiots with opinions like that,. ,but ill pass on your comments to the millions of thais that do sleep with their children, and i for one think its a great idea, and was there undertones in your comment" So your kid grows up thinking that the women of the house all sleep in one room together," you really are missing the point,.and by the way, im in the same room,

[ArranP]

After reading the book "Thailand Fever - A Road Map to Western Thai Relationships".

I can understand Farrang Culture promotes "Independance", whilst my experience of Thais is they all sleep together until 12 or 13 years old.

We still sleep together with our 8 month old daughter, however my personal preference is for her to have her own bedroom, my belief is she will disturb less during the nights and learn begin to recognise privacy with her own bedroom, which are farrang cultural traits.

[SoftWater]

Both our kids (three and a half and two) sleep with me and the wife. I'll put them in their own bedroom when they want one, but right now they love staying with us and we love staying with them. My wife's brother (now in his twenties and marrried with his own kid) slept in the same room as his parents till he was 13. Didn't seem to do him any harm. I would note that the parents got divorced shortly after though - maybe they didn't know what to do with each other anymore...

Edited July 15, 2009 by SoftWater

[prism]

Like the OP, we have twins too and they've been staying in the master bedroom since we brought them home. I too have a separate bedroom for them ready to go. The rules change when you have twins. I couldn't imagine not having them sleep with us in the beginning. The idea of one of us running to their room every hour or two to tend to them didn't seem practical. Now they are 20 months old and I'm looking forward to them sleeping on their own room. It's an Asian cultural thing to co-sleep but, until what age? At least one of them sleeps in his own crib now. I've been coaxing my wife to get them to sleep in their own beds for the time being. Hopefully my twins being boys, they'll want to sleep in their own room soon.

It's a cultural clash between east and west with us, but I usually give my wife the final say since she's been a great mom to our twins. I also enjoy watching them sleep sometimes.

I do think it'll be a good idea for them to sleep in their own room once they start pre-school at around age 3 yo. The farang in them is going to want their Independence eventually. I'll keep working with my wife on that plan.

Best thing is do whatever works best for the parents and the kids.

[Niranut]

If you are in BKK and haven't already, I would recommend looking into becoming a member of BAMBI (Bangkok Area Mothers and Babies International) They have a twins support group along with a host of other activities and resources that you may find helpful. Can get more information here: www.bambiweb.org

Also, for further online reading, I would recommend the Mothering Forum at www.mothering.com/discussions. They have several sub-forums there that you may find helpful which include "The Family Bed and Nighttime Parenting", "Parenting Multiples", and "NICU and Preemie Parenting".

As for working out the sleeping arrangements, that is a complex issue that will include personal and cultural considerations, among other things. A good read is "The No Cry Sleep Solution" (there is one version for babies and one for toddlers/preschoolers). The book has lots of good suggestions and tips for helping kids develop a good relationship with sleep and sleeping, regardless of where they are sleeping. I believe BAMBI has a copy of this in their library which you could borrow, but I'm not sure on that one.